Happiness

Is it a paradox to be at one time happy with our lives and at another time sad with our lives even if there is nothing different?

Comments

Although there may at least initially appear to be something inconsistent in being happy with one's life at one time and being sad about one's life at another time even though nothing has changed with respect to one's life, provided that one is not happy and sad about one's life in the same respect, there is no paradox--neither a logical paradox nor a paradox of rationality--in such a case. For it is plausible that there could be aspects of one's life about which one had reason to be happy and other aspects of one's life about which one had reason to be sad, and so, depending on which aspects of one's life one focused, one could be happy with one's life at one time and then sad about one's life at a different time, even though nothing had changed in one's life between the times in question. While there is no logical contradiction here, however, such a situation could suggest that one hasn't fully integrated one's attitudes towards the various aspects of one's life. I am inclined to think that the persistence of such opposed attitudes reveals ambivalence about one's life, ambivalence of the sort that can only be resolved by reflecting on one's life and trying to integrate its different aspects into a whole. Such ambivalence does not, in my opinion, manifest any irrationality, and although I am inclined to think that ambivalence is natural and perhaps even maybe the human condition, it may nevertheless be symptomatic of some deeper dissatisfaction with one's life as a whole which thereby merits attention.

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